


The lingering chill

by Zisk



Category: Zoo (TV)
Genre: Angst, Coping with trauma, F/M, hugs as an emotional bandaid
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-24
Updated: 2018-04-24
Packaged: 2019-04-27 12:25:19
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,268
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14425365
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zisk/pseuds/Zisk
Summary: The conversation I was waiting for in S2 after they get Jamie back from Canada, because I didn't realize I was full of feelings about them until he went to get her back.





	The lingering chill

Jamie sat at the bar in the airplane, waiting.  
Mitch would walk in sooner or later, when he got to a pause in whatever test he was running. He always circled back to the bar. It was one of the two constants on the plane; Jackson and Abraham were never apart for long, and Mitch would always end up at the bar.  
She felt a little guilty, as if she were setting a trap. She swirled the short glass she was holding, taking a small sip of vodka and steeling herself. This conversation had been a long time coming, days that felt like months spent in tense silence.  
She knew the things she needed to say, had been playing this conversation in her mind over and over. Thinking of every turn it could take, every reaction Mitch could have. When she tried to form the words they died in her throat, deflection and anger falling from her lips in their stead. The walls she’d built in Canada were so high she didn’t know if she could climb them, if she could throw her words over them like a rope. A life line. When she closed her eyes, she was back in the snow. The cold felt like it would never leave her bones.  
She shook her head harshly, taking another sip of vodka. She couldn’t fall down the hole, couldn’t afford to be in it when Mitch walked in.  
They’d come back, her family. They’d mustered a team, they’d come back and pulled her out of the bus, pulled her away from the bears and the wolves and the cold. The gnawing hunger, the dark. She could never forget it, the emotional scars just as deep as the physical, but they’d come back. She knew they would, she had trusted them with everything in her.  
But now… These people who had found her, they looked like her family. Talked like her family. But they were so different. Or maybe she was. She wanted to trust them, she ached to, but it was so hard.  
She shook her head harder, slamming her hand on the bar and taking another sip. The pain and the burn of the alcohol jogged her back.  
Don’t fall down the hole.  
There, the tap of shoes on the floor. Her shoulders tensed when they should have relaxed. She closed her eyes, this was her family. Hearing them should relax her. The footsteps stopped in the doorway and she slowly opened her eyes, looking up. A tiny smile ghosted across her lips.  
Mitch stood in the doorway, unsure.  
She shook her glass at him, eyebrow raised. “What are you drinking?” She asked, voice soft.  
“Whi-“ He cleared his throat, stepping in. “Whiskey, neat.”  
Jamie stood, walking around the bar and grabbing the bottle he always reached for. She poured three fingers, setting it in front of him and leaning forward on the bar.  
“How’s the…” She wiggled her fingers in the direction of the lab. Mitch groaned, sipping the whiskey.  
“No closer to anything, but now there’s a new animal that might kill me if we hit some turbulence.” He rolled his eyes.  
She nodded. “We’ll find it.”  
He looked up at her slowly, one corner of his mouth twitching up. “How’s the.” He gestured at her, a perfect imitation of her question.  
Her mouth quirked in a lop-sided smile, exactly the reaction he was hoping for. She tipped her head back, finishing the vodka and pouring herself another before she walked around the bar to sit near Mitch. Not the reaction he’d expected, but he found himself unsurprised.  
“Not great.” She stared at the glass in her hands, not meeting his eyes. “I… think I’m still there, when I sleep.”  
He nodded, knowing she couldn’t see him, and waited. Finally she sighed.  
“Talking about it makes it real so I don’t… I haven’t wanted…” She looked up, tears in her eyes and brows drawn.  
It hurt Mitch’s heart, and he buried the feeling as deep as he could get it. “It happened, whether you talk about it or not. I, for one, kind of want to know.”  
Jamie bit back her sharp response, the urge to shove him away, and sipped her vodka. “The animals broke through the fence, when you were coming to get the leopard. I had to run.”  
Mitch nodded. “We found your rope, figured you’d run.”  
“I went back to the house when it was safe, but you’d already left.” Her voice quieted toward the end of the sentence, she took a long sip.  
Mitch scowled. “I wanted to look for you.” Jamie raised an eyebrow and the surprise on her face made Mitch’s heart clench. “Abe threw me back on the helicopter, I was… I was halfway into the woods to find you.”  
“There was a bison, it’s probably better that you didn’t.” Jamie looked down, smiling shyly. Mitch had looked for her, the knowledge warmed her heart.  
He snorted, sipping his whiskey. “So, you went back.”  
“I got supplies, I left the message on the roof and I started walking.” Jamie took a long sip, thinking. “I made it a couple days before I must have stepped on the nail. My feet were so numb I didn’t feel it, it was the blood trail…” She inhaled, closing her eyes.  
“Jamie-“ She held up a hand, cutting him off.  
“There was a cabin, with an axe.” Mitch winced. “It worked, it didn’t spread.”  
They sipped their drinks in silence. Mitch got up to refill his glass. As he sat back down, Jamie sighed.  
“Caraquet was on fire, the people abandoned the town when the polar bears came.” Jamie knocked back a third of what was left in her glass. “They made the place you saw when you came to get me, they’d… feed the polar bears. To keep them from attacking.”  
Mitch made a disgusted noise and she looked up. He shook his head.  
“They sacrificed their own people?” He wasn’t surprised, just… disappointed.  
“They’d take a vote.”  
“They voted out the new girl.”  
Jamie snorted, nodding. “Yeah. We blew the fence, ran into the bus in the chaos.”  
Mitch studied her, silent.  
Jamie swallowed, her tongue too big for her mouth, and sipped at the last of the vodka in her glass. She steeled herself, tried to talk herself out of finishing. Didn’t want to form the words.  
“That woman, outside the bus.” She stopped, finishing the vodka. “She… She would have made it inside. I didn’t… I didn’t open…” Jamie choked on a half-formed sob, stopping.  
Mitch set his glass on the bar, reaching towards her. He stopped, his hand hovering over her shoulder.  
“Jamie…” He started, hesitantly. She looked up at him, miserable and tear streaked, and leaned into his hand. Mitch moved forward without thinking, wrapping himself around her. She tucked her head under his chin, crying, and wrapped her arms around him. He buried his face in her hair, heart aching.  
She stopped crying, after a while, but didn’t disentangle herself from Mitch. He gently ran a hand through her hair, tangling it in her curls.  
“Hey.” He whispered. “You got me into this, I wouldn’t be here if you’d never found me. If you didn’t keep pushing me. We need you, if we’re going to do this. I need you.”  
Jamie pulled back, looking up at him with puffy eyes. He smiled, wiping her cheek.  
“I’m not… Canada was…” She stopped, looking lost.  
“I need you.” He whispered a little more firmly. Jamie buried herself back into his chest, finally feeling warm again.


End file.
